1968: the Year the North Exploded Matt Collins

29 1968: The year the North exploded Matt Collins t was a seminal year. One defined by the emergence and the one-party states of the officially “communist” of popular social struggles for progressive change on Eastern Block. Ian international scale,often involving new forms of It was a period when, globally, the pendulum seemed activism that shook the foundations of regimes across to swing in favour of progress, a time to “demand the the globe, which fleetingly hinted at the possibility of impossible” as Che Guevara once urged. In an Irish revolution and fundamental change for millions of context, demanding the impossible meant the struggle people. From the Black Civil Rights Movement in the US, to overcome sectarian division in the North, and the to the mass movement against the Vietnam War and the power of a government that had practiced widespread student and worker mobilisations that engulfed large discrimination and repression throughout its five- parts of Europe, through to the events of October ’68 in decade long history, all the while presiding over a Prague; when the Stalinist veneer of “actually existing” society marked by low living standards and poverty for socialism began to crack, as workers in the Czech working class people, both Catholic and Protestant. The Republic rose up to demand democracy and liberation. civil rights movement that exploded onto the streets 1968 was a generational rupture, and a period of great of Derry and Belfast in October 1968, represented the possibility. An era when it became possible to imagine Irish expression of the global revolt; a generational a world beyond both free market “liberal” capitalism wave of civil disobedience and grassroots activism– IRISH MARXIST REVIEW 30 encompassing various strands of politics that were up genuine grievances inside the Northern Ireland temporarily united in opposition to the oppressive state, but was ultimately wrecked by a cabal of radical and discriminatory practices of the Unionist state. militants, who, at crucial points, pushed too far The violence and repression that met the civil rights ahead in pursuit of unrealistic goals and in doing so movementwas transformative, serving to lay the basis provoked sectarian violence.3 This approach involves for a protracted period of violence and conflict. a certain level of victim blaming, whereby civil rights Interpretations of this period speak directly to the demonstrators who had significant levels of violence causes of violence in the North, and 50 years on from inflicted upon them are essentially held responsible the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement and the for bringing about conflict. But it also involves a more period of violence that raged in its aftermath, we have specific argument, which views the role of radicals witnessed a systematic assault on the history of the civil within the civil rights movement as one that impeded rights campaign, in an effort to denigrate the memory of the possibility of a more gradual reform of the Northern the movement. Take Nelson McCausland—the former state at the beginning of the troubles.4 This article is, DUP MLA now turned unionist commentator— who in part, an attempt to refute this interpretation of the recently took to the pages of the Belfast Telegraph civil rights movement. In doing so, it explores the way in order to warn of the ground breaking fact that in which the upsurge of 1968 temporarily represented a republicans and communists were involved in break with past forms of politics in the North, opening establishing and organising the civil rights movement, up possibilities for a different course and a different in what appeared a lazy effort to repeat the myth that future, but ultimately being repressed and marginalised the civil rights movement amounted to a republican by the Unionist state, and later by British state forces plot to undermine the Northern Ireland state.1 This after military intervention in 1969. myth, of course, was the official line of the Unionist state in the late 1960s. It was strongly proclaimed by The Orange State pro-Unionist Party media outlets and it also served as The origins of the Northern troubles were rooted in events a rallying cry of aggression for opposition forces, led during the early 20th Century, which saw the partition of by Ian Paisley, who systematically abused civil rights Ireland and the birth of the Northern state. The state campaigners throughout 1968-1969. That this myth is that arose after partition represented a major setback easily refuted with basic historical study is seemingly for working class forces during the revolutionary period lost upon the Nelson McCauslands of this world. Such (1916-1923). It was a state established in the image of a debased analysis continues to get a hearing, however, the Unionist Party and the Orange Order, where the precisely because the effort to denigrate the civil rights position of the minority Catholic community was always movement is so deeply ingrained in various spheres insecure with intermitted strife commonplace from the of society today, particularly throughout academic beginning. The extent to which partition represented historiography. It is often categorised by a downplaying the maintenance of a colonial project was illustrated of the systemic nature of violence and repression by the military support that the new state could call endemic to the Northern state at this time, alongside a upon in any hour of need. This included a number of focus on the role of civil rights activists in “provoking” battalions of the British Army, the newly formed RUC, violence.2 and the formation of the Ulster Special Constabulary, Among an academic community that was strongly the notorious “B Specials”, anall-Protestant quasi- shaped by the violent conflict that raged in the paramilitary police force that essentially absorbed the aftermath of the civil rights movement, much debate membership of the pre-partition loyalist movement has ensued over the causes of the “troubles” and of the UVF.5 Such forces ensured a bloody beginning, historians have been keen to attach culpability to those and between 1920 and 1922 large scale pogroms and seen to have caused sectarian violence; toward this end sectarian violence occurred, predominately directed the radical left present an easy target. Throughoutmuch at the Catholic community, although “rotten prods” historiography, the narrative goes that the civil rights i.e. those deemed to be disloyal to the new state such movement was a well-meaning movement that took as Protestant socialist activists were also targeted.6 The violence represented the extreme end of repression, but The roots of the revolt 31 sectarian dominance became enshrined into the state Political opposition had not fared well inside the in more permanent ways. 1929 saw the abolition of the Northern state after partition, and the organised left proportional representation voting system, ensuring lived a fairly stagnant existence for some decades. The that parliamentary oppositional forces, such as labour two main traditions of political opposition that existed and nationalist, were pushed aside in the first past were the constitutional parliamentarianism of the Irish the post system.7 Further, election boundaries were Nationalist Party, and the Republican tradition of the designed in a way that ensured the Unionist Party would IRA. Both traditions were almost exclusively based in the return solid majorities where the Catholic community nationalist constituency and both essentially espoused a made up a majority of the population. The government form of anti-partitionism, albeit through very different itself boasted an all-Protestant membership that means. By the 1960s neither could claim much success: included a high ratio of members of the Orange Order, with the Nationalist Party confined to the fringes of and preferential treatment toward Protestants was parliamentary life, often ironically debilitated by its often encouraged. long-standing tactic of parliamentary abstentionism. Discrimination against the Catholic community The IRA, on the other hand, had embarked on its ill happened on a significant level in three key areas: fated “border campaign” between 1956-1962, which had electoral practice, employment and public housing. The failed miserably even by the organisations own terms.11 city of Derry became the classic example of electoral There was also a ‘third tradition’; the labour tradition, discrimination, where despite Catholics making up which sought to unite Catholic and Protestant workers over 60 percent of the population, Unionist politicians on a social and economic basis inside the Northern dominated the local council due to the gerrymandering state, largely through the structures of the trade union of boundaries. Regarding employment practices, movement and Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP). a system developed that marginalised the Catholic During the Irish revolutionary period labourism was community and often confined them to unskilled, lower largely anti-partition. After partition and running into paid jobs.8 The divide was even more acute within the the 1930s it involved both pro and anti partition currents. higher echelons of the state. For example, at senior But by the 1950s the NILP had become a firmly pro- civil servant level, only one Catholic reached the rank union party, with the anti-partition sections splitting of Permanent Secretary between 1921-1968, and in the off into smaller groupings like the Irish Labour Party, judiciary no Catholics were appointed to the Supreme or later, the Republican Labour Party. Although the Court from 1925 to 1949. In terms of housing allocation, 1950s and 1960s saw a rise in electoral support for the discrimination was intrinsically linked to the restricted NILP, particularly among Protestant workers reflecting voting franchise that existed inside the Northern state, the parties labour unionism, social democratic and left where a small number of property owners had more than politics had not grown in the North of Ireland in the one vote, and a much larger number of the population, way that various European countries had experienced.

Load more